Long-awaited Chicago policy doesn’t do enough to protect migrating birds, advocates say
CHICAGO — Annette Prince peered between glossy downtown buildings: ”There’s a bird in that grate.”
Sure enough, sitting very still in the rain was a tiny white-throated sparrow, so drenched you could barely make out its canary-yellow face markings. The bird was too dazed to move — an easy target for the hungry seagulls that were patrolling the area.
Prince looked up at the nearest skyscraper, with its rows of dark windows.
“He probably hit the glass up there and fell down,” she said.
A long-awaited policy update from the city of Chicago is supposed to help prevent such injuries and deaths, which occur by the thousands each year when migrating birds crash into local buildings.
But Chicago bird safety advocates say they are disappointed that the city’s policy update, now in draft form, does not make bird safety measures mandatory.
